from Ft. Collins, Colorado

I did a fair amount of research on alternatives to traditional land line service. I considered dropping the landline and just using my cell phone, but decided I wanted a phone number tied to a landline that I could give to local businesses, charities, etc., to avoid running up cell phone minutes. Sort of like the equivalent of having a separate email account for retailers, etc. To be clear, my expectations were that OOMA would be "almost as good" as a traditional landline, and not "as good or better".

According to Consumer Reports, customers rated OOMA the #1 phone service last year, handily beating the big phone companies. I decided to try OOMA, and purchased at Best Buy because I could return the product in 30 days if it didn't live up to expectations.

Centurylink (formerly Qwest) provides my DSL service. I had 1.5 MPS service, with a separate modem & wireless router. The setup was as easy as advertised. In less than a half hour everything was up and running and I was making calls on OOMA.

After 30 days of flawless performance, I decided to keep OOMA and upgrade my DSL service to 12MPS (my decision to upgrade DSL was unrelated to OOMA - OOMA worked fine with my existing 1.5MPS service). The DSL upgrade required a new integrated modem/router. An integrated moden/router is one where the modem and the router functionality are both built in to one box, versus two separate boxes. I had some concerns that this change would impact my OOMA service, because I read one review that reported OOMA was incompatible with their integrated modem/router, albeit the service provider was AT&T.

OOMA chat support assured me that OOMA would be compatible with my new modem/router, and they were correct. I plugged OOMA into the new modem/router, power cycled, and everything worked fine.

As a side note, on 2 occasions, I found OOMA online chat support to be responsive, and my questions were accurately answered. However, on a third occasion, I used OOMA telephone support. I found telephone support equally responsive and accurate, but the background noise in their call center was awful. I mean, it sounded like the person on the other end was talking in a crowded bar during happy hour. I was barely able to understand what she was saying, and I had to ask her to repeat everything at least twice.

Long story longer, OOMA works with my setup. I dropped my Centurylink landline, and I'm saving ~$60 a month. In my experience, call quality (sending and receiving) is comparable to a traditional land line, which exceeds my expectations. I didn't give this product 5 stars only because I reserve the highest rating for truly exceptional products and services, such as Apple.

What's great about it: Works as advertised, very good voice quality, helpful support

What's not so great: Very noisey phone support, upfront cost of OOMA box

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Customer Rating

Works Great

on May 8, 2011

Posted by: skwira000

from White Bear Township, MN

Let me just mention one bad experience. When I activated the Ooma, I orderd the number porting for $40. The fraud prevention called me from my credit card company and they asked me if I authorized this transaction from Ooma. I told them yes. So I know the transaction went through. However, I'm guessing because I didn't include my phone bill (Ooma lets you attach a copy of your phone bill when you activate) they must not of had information needed. I carefuly checked my accounts and say that the transaction was no longer listed in my account after it said pending. It was no big deal. I then attempted the port process again by logging into the Ooma, this time including my phone bill, and it worked.

Now that we got the bad out of the way, let me tall you about the good. The call quality the first day was not impressive I also couldn't make any 10 digit phone calls within my area code, but outside my area code worked fine. Also, my name didn't appear on the caller ID the first day when I called other people. That only happened during the first day. After that, all of those problems went away.

The only issue with the ease of use has absolutely nothing to do with Ooma. Unless you did your own phone wiring, you should have 2 junction boxes outside your home. One will explicitly say customer access. Once your number has been ported or you get the Ooma up and running, you need to disconnect the junction box that says customer access. This cannot be any easier. I went ahead and disconnected both boxes, and then it was a pain to reconnect them in the non customer box out side of my home. You do this so you can distribute dial tone to all phone jacks, and instead of connecting the wall port to the phone, you connect the phone port to the phone, but again make sure your old service is canceled first and you disconnect those cables!!! Once you do this once it's easy to do it again, but if you don't know what you're doing it can get you.

We're very happy with the voice quality. The sound quality if much better than a cell phone. There is very little difference in equality between a land line and this. I've even loaded a 14 minute You Tube video while talking to someone and it didn't cause it to break up at all.

We are Ooma premiere customers. I absolutely love the features where I can filter certain callers to voice mail. I get voice mails emailed to my inbox. I can forward calls to my cell phone if the Internet goes down. The instant second line does really work. However, it's a pain to tell someone who has the Ooma handset next to them that they have a phone call because when they pick it up they will get the other line. I haven't figured out if you can choose what line to pick up on yet.

In the final analysis, this system is very easy to setup for the average user for what most people will use it for. If you have enough expansion phones and don't rely on your phone jacks, the setup and everything else is cake walk. If however, you decide you want your call jacks, you just go out to the CUSTOMER junction box mounted on the ouside wall of your home and disconnect them. Also, this can get complicated if you have DSL. We have cable, so the disconnecting of the phone would have been easy if I had read the Ooma forums more thoroughly. I also highly recommend some kind of battery backup. The one I have listed below is not necessarily the exact one you need. You need your modem, router, and Ooma to have a battery backup so when your power goes down you can still make phone calls.

What's great about it: Keep your current number, better QoS than magic jack, easy activation

What's not so great: Number porting during activation didn't go through. Make sure you include a copy of your phone bill!!!!

I would recommend this to a friend!

Other Best Buy Products I Recommend

APC - 450VA Battery Back-Up System

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Customer Rating

Pricey but excellent technology

on November 19, 2012

Posted by: Gonzalea

from Kathleen, GA

Verified Purchase:Yes

When compared to Majic Jack Plus, the price for the Ooma device is too high however; the number portability was very good and easy to follow. I could not port my current home number using Majic Jack Plus, otherwise, I would have not considered Ooma as a service due to its initial cost. Basic service is all I needed for my home so I couldn't justify the premier package. With Majic Jack Plus, I can call Puerto Rico at no additional cost but unfortunately with Ooma, Puerto Rico is considered an international call and therefore, I have to spend more money for those calls. Fortunately, I can use my Magic Jack plus to call Puerto Rico and I won't need the internatioanal packages even though the cost is only 1 cent per minute. The performance of Ooma is extremely good and reliable. I had minor issues setting it up initially however, Ooma's excellent tech support service via Live Chat was very helpful. Once it was set up, the system worked very well and I haven't had any problems so far. I have had my Ooma device for about a month now and have enjoyed it very much. I am rating this review as "Good" only due to it's price however; the service is excellent.

What's great about it: Cost saver

What's not so great: Price

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Customer Rating

Excellent way to lower overall home phone costs

on January 23, 2013

Posted by: SailorTrainer

from Norfolk, VA

First, I recommend this to anyone wanting to lower costs. We have been using ours for over two years, and have experienced very little to comment on as issues that would deter anyone interested in this product.
Pros: Easy to set up and use. Basic features like call waiting and caller ID at no extra charge. Ability to check voice mails via internet instead of calling and having to enter codes. Reliable connections. Low overall cost once you've gotten past the time to make up the initial purchase price.
Cons: Lose power, you lose your phone, just like any other phone with applied power. Initial buy-in cost (however, if you take your monthly phone bill and see how many months it would take to make the cost up, it is usually only 4-6 months, then it starts saving money). The power jack on the back of the unit pops out easy, so we have to make sure it doesn't get moved. Also occasionally, calls will drop, but we have not been able to figure out if it was the Ooma, the router, modem, or an internet glitch that caused it. Also, unable to turn off the Ooma answering function if you want to use one on another phone system (like our cordless). You have to set the pickup ring number higher than your other system, although it still will snatch a call now and then.
Other info: Power loss can be avoided if you have your Internet modem, router, and Ooma on a Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) system (get one in the computer section), which will maintain power for at least several hours, depending on the power draw to the battery in the UPS. Most states you will have a monthly tax surcharge, in MD it runs about $4.00/month ($50 a year approximately). Still cheaper than paying a flat fee of $45.00 every month forever which the local cable company offered us. We had one instance where the Ooma system had a glitch which affected our system for a day or so, but it was something odd, and Ooma was on it from the get-go to resolve the issue.
If you have high speed internet, this is a great product. It provides all the basic features most people will need on the basic plan, and the Premier plan is great for a second line (for a teen, or a home based business).
E911 is used to map your address. We had a new house built with an address not in the USPS database, so it took a bit of coordination for them to accept the street address. Most established addresses won't have this issue, and it is not an Ooma issue.

Enjoy it!!!

What's great about it: Low monthly cost, easy setup, clear voice, basic features, online message reviewing

What's not so great: Power connection, no power no phone, E911 address issues

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Customer Rating

Definitely the best VOIP service

on July 29, 2013

Posted by: ngorgone

from Long Island, NY

Verified Purchase:Yes

This service is one of the easiest electronic installations that I have ever done in our home. The registration process was simple and they had numerous local phone numbers for me to choose from. There are even more if you do not care if you have a local number because you could choose any area in the country for your phone number. You are given a 3 months of premiere service for free to try out that service and then you have the choice of keeping premiere service for $10 + taxes per month or going with basic service for just the taxes each month (It seems the government found a way to tax free stuff now). Obviously taxes will vary depending on your area. Mine happens to be $4 per month.

After registration, the hardware is literally, and without exaggeration, plug & play. I plugged the Ooma device into my router and my phone into the Ooma device. Any phone could be used as it is a standard phone jack on the device. I went with a cheaper AT&T wireless phone that was on sale at Best Buy. The Ooma device goes through it's boot-up sequence and updates the software automatically. Once that is done the system was online and the phone was working for outbound calls. It was about 15 minutes until inbound calls were making their way to my phone.

As for sound quality, I have no complaints. It is comparable to a land line. This may vary depending on your internet connection and home network.

I have already recommended Ooma to all my friends that still have conventional phone lines to their homes.

My Best Buy number: 0312161048

What's great about it: Great price, Easy to setup

What's not so great: Haven't found anything that is wrong with this device\service\company yet

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Customer Rating

Great replacement for a phone line.

on August 24, 2011

Posted by: MRVito

I have owned one of these for almost 2 years now. My in-laws just purchased one for their house to replace their secondary land line. If you have a reliable internet connection then this is a great phone for you. I would not recommend trying to use this on poor low-bandwidth DSL or you will have call quality issues which is the justification for removing 1 point in performance. Never had a dropped call, and call quality is great. Setup only takes about 10 minutes. Note: You do have to pay taxes on the service that is less than $10/year which they will automatically charge your credit card for.

What's great about it: Great price/quality.

What's not so great: Relies heavily on quality internet connection for quality and up-time.

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Customer Rating

Great Device / Superb Phone Service / Low $$$

on July 6, 2010

Posted by: bmccollum

from Lakeland, TN

Bought the device at our local Best Buy this past Friday after reading a ton of reviews on it and deciding we would try it. Working towards eliminating our long-standing traditional landline. We now have the alarm system in our home monitored via cellular connection instead of the landline, so that's one less piece of equipment that'll need a landline.

Installed the Ooma device attached to an 8-port switch/hub that connects to our wireless router... no problem... easy setup. Have used the device on and off over the past weekend and thus far, I can't find a single thing at all wrong with it that makes me/us want to consider keeping our traditional landline present. Call quality has been equivalent to or surpassed the call quality experienced over the years with our traditional landline.

We paid the up-front cost of porting our long-standing home # over to the device and that should be complete in about 2 more weeks.

We'll connect the Ooma device at that point to one of our home phone jacks in order to provide service to all of the jacks throughout the house.

This will save us about $35-$36 per month. I'm very pleased thus far with the purchase!

What's great about it: Wonderful call quality, monthly savings over traditional phone bill

What's not so great: $200-$250 up-front cost, but that's recouped pretty quickly though

I would recommend this to a friend!

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Customer Rating

Love my Ooma

on July 10, 2010

Posted by: gstwt

from Owasso, OK

I bought this Ooma unit about 2 months ago thinking "OK, this will be like magic jack with below average call quality, where you sound like a robot except you do not have to plug into a computer". I figured what the heck I would give it a try and if I did not like it I would return the unit. Well, the unit is still with me and is not going anywhere. I am totally loving my Ooma. The call quality is just as good as having a dedicated land line. I have had absolutely no problems with my service & really like the website where you can customize features, etc... It was a little tricky setting up at first, but it only took me less than 15 minutes to get it set up & be able to make calls.

What's great about it: Great sound qaulity & no more huge phone bill.

What's not so great: The initial price of 199 plus ts worth it. In just a few months it pays for itself.

I would recommend this to a friend!

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